The reality of immigration

I'm always skeptical about people's views on immigration. It either seems to be a simple "let's let everyone in for the sake of not looking like Nazis!" or, at the other end of the hall, "the solution to all of our problems is not letting anyone into the country and putting our people first." So, are there actually any significant problems caused by immigration as we see it happening now? Or are all of our problems apparently caused/fuelled by immigration just there to put the blame on someone else? Is there a reasonable solution without a full blown revolution and all that socialist jazz?

This is a bit of a short question for such a big topic, but I never know where I stand on this issue. Most leftists will stamp this out like a cigarette on the floor as soon as it comes up and call anyone who disagrees a racist/xenophobe.

Those who care deeply about anti-immigration in my country sometimes propose a national referendum were the people will decide. I imagine such a referendum must have more alternatives then just "yes" and "no", but it might be a good idea anyway. Since people care so much about it, we might repeat this referendum with regular intervals, like every ten year or something. With stuff like international trade and unemployment and lack of workers within this or that sector, negative climate-events and such, a immigration-policy can't be hammered out in stone for all eternity.

I don't think any country in the world has completely open boarders on neither goods nor people, so protectionism is not outdated in the real world - specially now that stuff like the EU and the Euro might break. (Hopefully we will find a new form of European collaboration, perhaps something like a mini-UN for Europe, perhaps as a sub-group of the big UN, but that is a different debate)

DSN wrote:So, are there actually any significant problems caused by immigration as we see it happening now? Or are all of our problems apparently caused/fuelled by immigration just there to put the blame on someone else? Is there a reasonable solution without a full blown revolution and all that socialist jazz?

There are legitimate problems which working class people endure as a result of immigration. The most serious issue associated with immigration is that it inflates the size of labor market, thereby putting downward pressure on wages and rendering jobs more precarious in nature.

To answer your question, I would submit that nothing short of fundamentally changing modes of production can sufficiently address the problem. It's a truism that within capitalist societies the bourgeoisie shape public policy, and since capitalists benefit from labor and capital mobility, the problems it causes for the national proletariat cannot be resolved. We can obviously conceive of policies which would limit immigration and capital flight within the context of capitalism, but they simply aren't politically viable.

This is a bit of a short question for such a big topic, but I never know where I stand on this issue.

Anyone concerned with assisting the working class should oppose immigration.

Most leftists will stamp this out like a cigarette on the floor as soon as it comes up and call anyone who disagrees a racist/xenophobe.

That's because most contemporary Leftists don't possess an adequate understanding of economics, and are obsessed with promoting cosmopolitanism—even if it's to the detriment of advancing socialist revolution.

Celtiberian wrote:Anyone concerned with assisting the working class should oppose immigration.

Well I think the obvious idea running around everyone's minds is that we have to help the working class of every country and therefore support the immigrant's right to a good standard of living in the more developed countries of Europe and North America, although this obviously doesn't work out as well as we'd like it to.

That's because most contemporary Leftists don't understanding economics, and are obsessed with promoting cosmopolitanism—even if it's to the detriment of advancing socialist revolution.

So how exactly would bringing immigration to a halt in our current situation make a socialist revolution more likely to happen in the first place?

DSN wrote:Well I think the obvious idea running around everyone's minds is that we have to help the working class of every country and therefore support the immigrant's right to a good standard of living in the more developed countries of Europe and North America, although this obviously doesn't work out as well as we'd like it to.

I understand their argument, but it's based on fallacious reasoning. As I stated in my previous post, it reduces to a zero-sum situation: the immigrants benefit only at the expense of the host population's working class. This, in turn, causes resentment and hostility within the working class, which ultimately only benefits fascist demagogues and/or right-wing politicians who disingenuously promise to restrict immigration.

So how exactly would bringing immigration to a halt in our current situation make a socialist revolution more likely to happen in the first place?

Sociologically speaking, it's much easier to organize individuals around a common cause when the differences between them aren't too drastic. Mass immigration merely prolongs the dictatorship of capital because it provides reactionaries with the opportunity to quell the class struggle by encouraging the working class to perceive their problems as related solely to nationality or race. This is a successful strategy to employ because it's partially accurate; the national proletariat are suffering hardships as a result of immigration—though it is capitalism which is the cause of that immigration (which the reactionaries intentionally omit).

I'm against right-wing populism and anti-immigrant rhetoric

The Problem is Capitalism, not a poor people

NazBol wrote:I'm against right-wing populism and anti-immigrant rhetoric

The Problem is Capitalism, not a poor people

This, how can anyone call themselves socialist and support a capitalist government accepting or allowing/rejecting people into a certain territory. The earth does not belong to anyone and a socialist would never support a government, capitalist to boot, controlling the flow of people in and out of a certain space.

I am really freaked out at some of the things even considered debate worthy on here considering it is supposed left wing people.

SalfordAnarchist.

Celtiberian wrote:I understand their argument, but it's based on fallacious reasoning. As I stated in my previous post, it reduces to a zero-sum situation: the immigrants benefit only at the expense of the host population's working class. This, in turn, causes resentment and hostility within the working class, which ultimately only benefits fascist demagogues and/or right-wing politicians who disingenuously promise to restrict immigration.

Well seeing as the first world workers can only have the reforms and standard of living they have under capitalism is because of the capitalist, imperialist nations plundering the third world and extracting billions in practical slavery and natural resource theft, I think the amount immigrants make in wages, compared to benefits first worlders receive from the third world nations is minuscule.

You seem to view immigrants as parasitic where as in actual fact it is 100% the other way round.

Colonise half the world, complain about immigrants!

SalfordAnarchist

Just because the government is bourgeois and the economic system is Capitalism does not mean that we have to support free immigration. I think it would be prudent for you to elicit your reasoning for wanting a borders to disappear. It is up to the people that live in a place who is allowed to enter that area, within reason of course.

Addition:

SalfordAnarchist wrote:Well seeing as the first world workers can only have the reforms and standard of living they have under capitalism is because of the capitalist, imperialist nations plundering the third world and extracting billions in practical slavery and natural resource theft, I think the amount immigrants make in wages, compared to benefits first worlders receive from the third world nations is minuscule.

You seem to view immigrants as parasitic where as in actual fact it is 100% the other way round.

Colonise half the world, complain about immigrants!

He said nothing of the sort. Try reading.

No, if I live on my street can I stop you living here?

Just because you live somewhere, does not give you the right to stop other people living there, your position on self determination is wrong, self determination is one thing, when you determine other peoples destiny's by authoritarian means, you are being anti democratic and evil.

SalfordAnarchist

SalfordAnarchist wrote:Well seeing as the first world workers can only have the reforms and standard of living they have under capitalism is because of the capitalist, imperialist nations plundering the third world and extracting billions in practical slavery and natural resource theft, I think the amount immigrants make in wages, compared to benefits first worlders receive from the third world nations is minuscule.

This is largely irrelevant. While it is true that imperialism has certainly contributed to the expansion of western capitalism at the expense of the global south, the proletariat in the global north has benefited only indirectly, and in large part, imperialism is ruinous for the working class regardless of country. (To borrow Engels' famous quote, "No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.") Capital flight and immigration are deleterious to both the First World proletariat and to international proletarian solidarity. The former fosters competitive relations between nations, while the latter depresses wages and foments resentment on the part of both immigrants and native inhabitants.

Furthermore, the average member of the working class is not aware of the sources of Third World poverty, let alone do they view themselves as beneficiaries thereof. It seems as though you are implying that imperialism is the only manner of securing a greater standard of living in the First World, when this is patently false. A gross misallocation of global resources and their concentration ensure widespread poverty and waste, but this can be rectified with socialized production and fair trade as opposed to "free" trade.

You seem to view immigrants as parasitic where as in actual fact it is 100% the other way round.

Nobody has claimed that immigrants are "parasitic." Capitalists are the only significant parasites in society. Immigration, however, is inimical to working class interests. All leftists should staunchly oppose immigration. There is no indication that it benefits the international working classes, although it certainly generates unnecessary friction and renders the proletariat more vulnerable to reactionary nationalist appeals.

Colonise half the world, complain about immigrants!

Western capitalists have colonized, but this is entirely removed from the average proletarian in the global north, who merely seeks to get by the day with a minimal degree of comfort.

SalfordAnarchist

Yes, we are perfectly aware of your pseudonym. Is it absolutely necessary to "sign" almost every post?

Why do you think white worers can still enjoy things as oppressed workers the third world workers can only dream about?

Labour aristocracy, we here all benefit in some diret way from the wealth stolen and plundered from the third world.

Them huge super prfits generated mean the capitalists in the imperialist nations can give workers here reforms and higher wages and even benefits if they are not even producing, how would this be possible if not for the billions made off slavery and plundering abroad, it would not be.

If not for imperialism workers would have to receive less than the value of their labour and lose all benefits to keep the capitalist in profits, whenever anyone moans about immigrants it is the biggest hypocrisy going and shows someone's true colours.

SalfordAnarchist

SalfordAnarchist wrote:Why do you think white worers can still enjoy things as oppressed workers the third world workers can only dream about?

Labour aristocracy, we here all benefit in some diret way from the wealth stolen and plundered from the third world.

Them huge super prfits generated mean the capitalists in the imperialist nations can give workers here reforms and higher wages and even benefits if they are not even producing, how would this be possible if not for the billions made off slavery and plundering abroad, it would not be.

If not for imperialism workers would have to receive less than the value of their labour and lose all benefits to keep the capitalist in profits, whenever anyone moans about immigrants it is the biggest hypocrisy going and shows someone's true colours.

SalfordAnarchist

Your contention is patently false (and clearly based on Lenin's fundamental misunderstanding of how imperialism would evolve). Today, the only individuals making the argument that globalization leads to the sorts of economic benefits (for first-world workers) you cite are Maoist Third Worldist quacks and neoliberal charlatans.

The fact of the matter is that globalization has not led to any corresponding increase in the wages or benefits of workers in the Global North. Wages in the U.S., for example, have remained stagnant for roughly 40 years — during which time the rate of offshoring and outsourcing has skyrocketed. The only 'benefit' that globalization has arguably introduced to the Global North has been a reduction in the price of various (non-essential) commodities. The increased job precarity, wage stagnation, and rises in the prices of essential goods and services (e.g. energy, food, healthcare, and housing) have all demonstrated that imperialism has not led to the creation of any so-called aristocracy of labor.

Scarcity in the supply of available labor is what leads to increases in the wages and benefits of workers in growing capitalist economies.

I actually despise thirdworldists, I just recognise fact and don't ignore it. I f I am wrong can you explain why even when production in the UK is at an all time low and workers are producing less and earning higher percentages of the value of their labour at the same time, if there was not a massive open pool of cheap labour and resources to plunder, first world working class peoples conditions would plummet as the push to drive profits up and costs down would mean longer hours less pay and no state benefits.

SalfordAnarchists

Where I say thirdworldists are full of shit is this does not mean workers here are not exploited or slaves, we are just the house slave and the third world workers and peasants are the field slaves.

We just get benefits for the supporting of the monopoly capitalist economic system in place, the military force used to impose the system and having a benefited exploited class stops outbreaks of serious revolution in the first world in the heartlands of the capitalist system.

SalfordAnarchist